Regularly updated blog charting the most important albums of the last 50 years

Saturday, March 29, 2008

534. Sade - Diamond Life (1984)

Track Listing

1. Smooth Operator2. Your Love Is King3. Hang On To Your Love4. When Am I Gonna Make A Living5. Frankie's First Affair6. Cherry Pie7. Sally8. I Will Be Your Friend9. Why Can't We Live Together

Review

This is a most tremendously uncool album to love. This is of course a prelude to me saying that I do indeed love it. I am not sure if it is because one of my earliest memories is seeing the Smooth Operator video on TV, or because this is quite a flawless soft-soul-jazz album for the 80's.

The first three songs are the really well known singles, but I am pretty sure they could have kept releasing tracks from the album and made a hit with them. It is just so different from what was going on at the time, it is a pretty original album. There were many imitations at the time and all of them vastly inferior.

Sade Adu's voice is in an icy contralto which works perfectly for its time, there was always something about the 80's that revealed a certain coldness behind the superficial gaudiness. And this album is not gaudy in the least, they are good songs, perfectly performed. It is of course terribly dated, and something you probably wouldn't put on in polite company for fear of blushing, but I don't care, this album is very deserving of being in this list.

Track Highlights

1. Smooth Operator2. Hold On To Your Love3. Your Love Is King4. Sally

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Although initially not a big seller, the album was catapulted into the spotlight once the track "Your Love Is King" went top ten. The album for many years held the record of best-ever debut by a female solo artist, remaining on the British chart for ninety-nine weeks.